Cliff Bleszinski's Concept Art Teases Show His New IP

The series of cropped images Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski has shared this month come from a new intellectual property that is in development, he has revealed to Polygon.

The first of these pieces of concept art surfaced on Bleszinski's Twitter on August 1. The image, created by concept artist Shaddy Safadi, depicts a soldier of some kind standing next to a river, and was described at the time by Bleszinski as a "sneak peak at something I'm working on." The next "closely cropped" image, seen below, was tweeted yesterday and is radically different from the first. It shows a court surrounded by glass with a basketball referee being dwarfed by robot-like players, at least one of which is wearing what appears to be a jetpack.

Bleszinski, whose credits include everything from Jazz Jackrabbit to Unreal Tournament to Gears of War, has provided virtually no hard details about what he's working on, only telling Polygon these images are part of the universe in this new IP. He has indicated on Twitter that this new game is not an Xbox One exclusive.

The former Epic Games design director left the Gears of War maker last October, hinting at the time that he might leave the games industry altogether. He fairly quickly made it clear he wouldn't be doing that, and would instead potentially start a studio of his own. He stated one of the ideas he was working on was codenamed 'BlueStreak,' though it's unclear whether these new teases have anything to do with that project, or if it even still exists.

Stay tuned to IGN for the latest on what comes next from Cliff Bleszinski.

Chris Pereira is a freelance writer who misses playing Instagib capture-the-flag matches in the old Unreal Tournament games. Check out what he's saying on Twitter and follow him on IGN.